Danielle Spencer, Whats Happening!! star, dies at 60

Danielle Spencer, who performed the wisecracking and tattling little sister Dee Thomas on the Seventies sitcom “What’s Happening!!” has died at 60.

Ms. Spencer, who grew to become a veterinarian later in life, died Monday (August 11, 2025) at a hospital in Richmond, Virginia, after a yearslong battle with most cancers, household spokesperson Sandra Jones stated.

As Dee, Spencer was the smarter, extra severe youthful sister who provided a gentle stream of deadpan roasts of huge brother Roger “Raj” Thomas and his pals Dwayne Nelson and Freddie “Rerun” Stubbs.

“Ooh, I’m gonna inform mama,” would turn into Dee’s catchphrase.

The present, set within the Los Angeles neighbourhood of Watts and among the many first on tv to concentrate on the lives of Black youngsters, was primarily based on the film “Cooley High” and ran on ABC from 1976 to 1979. It had a protracted legacy because of its memorable characters, together with the geeky Raj, the catchphrase-spouting Dwayne, the red-bereted dancing phenom Rerun, and Dee together with her eyerolls and icy stare.

Early within the manufacturing of the present’s first season, Spencer, then 12, was in a significant automobile accident on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California, that left her in a coma for 3 weeks and killed her stepfather, Tim Pelt. She would have spinal and neurological issues that will require a number of surgical procedures within the years afterward.

Born in Trenton, New Jersey, and raised in New York, Spencer started performing when she was about 9. “What’s Happening!!” can be her first credited position.

“Imagine being plucked from obscurity to star in a TV present,” she advised Jet journal in 2014. “I had by no means seen any younger Black lady in that kind of highlight, so I didn’t have a reference level within the media as to find out how to take care of this chance. I used to be from the Bronx.”

Haywood Nelson, who performed Dwayne on the present, paid tribute Tuesday to “Dr. Dee, our sensible, loving, optimistic, pragmatic warrior.”

“We have misplaced a daughter, sister, member of the family, ‘What’s Happening’ forged member, veterinarian animal rights proponent and healer, and most cancers heroine. Our Shero,” Nelson stated on Instagram. “Danielle is liked.”

Spencer additionally appeared on a mid-Eighties reboot of the present, “What’s Happening Now!!,” which ran for 3 seasons.

In 2018, she had emergency surgical procedure for a bleeding hematoma, which stemmed from that 1977 automobile crash. In the quick aftermath, a household spokesperson stated she might solely converse barely and had to make use of crutches to stroll. She had been struggling signs from no less than 2004, when she had to make use of a wheelchair and relearn find out how to stroll. In 2014, she was recognized with breast most cancers and had a double mastectomy.

She went on to turn into a veterinarian and advocate for animals. She attended the University of California, Davis, and UCLA, and acquired a doctorate in veterinary drugs from Tuskegee University in 1993.

Spencer continued to dabble in performing in her later years, together with an look as a veterinarian within the 1997 Jack Nicholson movie “As Good because it Gets.”

She is survived by her brother, musician Jeremy Pelt, and her mom, Cheryl Pelt.